In Moscow, Igor Ripurpantzov looked on and smiled at the ensuing chaos. Everything coming nicely together just as planned, he thought, toasting himself with another glass of Cobetckoe Ntpnctoe.
Nowadays, even “Maggie” Montague had become aware of these potentially catastrophic shifts in the world order. As Sir Magnus, he hadn’t given much of a toss, had actually quite liked the new president, thinking him a man after his own heart—a businessman who, unlike your regular politician, could tell shit from Shinola and didn’t mind saying so. And if lily-livered liberals in the US had been taken by surprise by his improbable victory, the more fool them. Ditto the UK bunch of wet nellies currently bemoaning Brexit. More power to the elbows of the brave Brexiteers who had campaigned so valiantly to salvage British sovereignty from the clutches of the woolly-minded Europeans, was what Sir Magnus had reckoned. Which was why he had covertly funnelled funds from the bank’s already in-the-red accounts to the Leave campaign in the belief he was helping preserve the power of the glorious nation which had for centuries defeated Europeans of all hues—on land, at sea, in the air, everywhere—to ensure it was Brits who colonised the world, not them.
So it was, just like the American hillbillies, rednecks and left-behinds, that Sir Magnus had unquestioningly accepted an always already mythic version of national identity, which on scrutiny bore no resemblance to current or even past reality. But neither he nor his fellow delusionists in the US had bothered with such parlous introspection… they had just swallowed history’s stories/lies whole. Proud to be American, proud to be British, and happy to be chosen rather than take the time and effort to contemplate choice.
But that was the old Sir Magnus for you. The re-formed “Maggie” had rearranged his brain to see the world in a different context. Not cynical but resolutely sceptical such that nothing passed beneath his radar without critical examination. And how that had changed not just his external appearance, but also his mind! Even to the extent of wishing to repair some of the damage he had done in his old persona. His bank he had already fixed as best he was able, now he wanted to change the world. But first he needed to find Jeremy Crawford, congratulate him on his escape from mindless conventions, and offer any support he might need. But where the bloody hell was he?
It was for the wont of any better idea that he’d girded his loins in their skinny black leather jeans, donned the rest of his Lambretta-riding outfit—the crash hat with the FREEDOM flag and a Hells Angel-type black leather jacket—and burnt (okay “singed”) rubber to Fanbury to see if the family had any news. He could have phoned but reckoned it better to go in person.
It was a bleary-eyed Sophie who opened the door, gawped for a second, and said, “If it’s money you want, you can piss off,” before slamming the door in his face.
Unsurprised but equally undeterred, Maggie pulled the bell-chime rope again and though the letterbox whispered, “It’s me. Sir Magnus.”
The door re-opened, just a crack.
“What… the… fuck?” said Sophie, recognition registering dimly. It was the eyes that were the giveaway. Less gimlet, mistier, but still the same old eyes.
“My name’s Maggie now. Long story,” explained the ex-Sir Magnus. “Mind if I come in?” he was saying as, behind Sophie loomed a burly polished-headed figure with a Zapata moustache.
“Bleedin’ right we do,” said Burly. “Don’t we, Soph?”
Sophie girned rictally. “Um, erm, this is…” she was saying until Burly provided the answer on her behalf.
“Mitch,” he said. “As in ‘don’t mess with Mitch.’ Got it? An’ if Soph says you should piss awff, you should piss awff. Narmean? Uvverwise you is looking at hospital time.”
“Mitch, Mitch,” said Sophie while Maggie examined his boots and flicked road dirt from his Hells Angels jacket.
“Things have changed around here I see,” he said.
“Got that right, bruvver. Now, like I said, piss awff,” said Mitch, taking a step forward so Maggie could inspect at closer quarters the knuckle duster embracing his muscly fingers.
“Sorry about this. Mitch is my new…” said Sophie.
“Live-in lover,” said Mitch. Threateningly.
“Okay. Fair enough,” said Maggie, turning to leave. “I was just wondering if you’d had any news from Jeremy, that was all. But never mind, I’ll just…”
“Fuck AWFF,” said Mitch, stroking his polished pate with the hand that wasn’t dusting his knuckles.
“Quite. So… have a nice life, you two,” Maggie called over his shoulder as he made his way back to the waiting Lambretta in which, during its owner’s absence, a pig had taken an unnatural interest.
“Oink, oink,” said Pete, when Maggie tried to shoo him away.
“Bally pigs,” he was on the cusp of saying until peculiar tumblers fell in his brain.
Had not Jeremy lived with a pig during his time in the barn? Of course he had. And thought of it as his best friend according to the “bonkers” diagnosis provided by both the family and the shrinks. No reason to assume this was the same pig of course, but if it were…”
“Oink, oink,” repeated Pete, who’d ambled off from the Shepherd’s Hut while the humans were busy inside to check out his old stamping ground and make sure everything was in order. Which, he was glad to see, it was. But then the peculiar stranger had arrived and, employing his normally underrated porcine intelligence quotients, Pete sensed he needed guidance. Possibly a friend of Master Jeremy’s, he surmised, hence the semiotic curly-tail-waggling he now offered as a lure. A sign Sir Magnus would never had read, but one new man Maggie—bamboozled but nonetheless—took as a gesture of friendship.
“You would like me to follow you?” he asked Pete, who waggled his tail some more.
“OINK OINK,” he said, beginning to trundle off towards Fanbury’s main drag. And for reasons he would forever question, Maggie, pushing the Lambretta, followed, although progress was slow.
“Look, piggy,” he said after only twenty or thirty metres, “why don’t you climb aboard? It’d be faster that way.”
“Oink,” Pete agreed, clambering onto the footplate and settling his trotters on the mid-section of the handlebars while Maggie slid back on his seat then leaned forwards around Pete to control the throttle and handbrake.
“Just point me in the right direction, okay? I tell you what, you can wear my crash hat too.”
“OINK OINK!”
It was unsurprising given all the pressure he’d been under as the Internet’s most sought-after person that when Maggie beeped his horn to announce their arrival and Jeremy peered through the window and saw Pete—over whose unexplained absence he’d been fretting—now driving a motor scooter with a passenger on the pillion, he should have fainted and needed to be revived with a shot of Barry’s Special Reserve 80% beetroot brandy and a head massage from Julie.
It was OO17 Maurice Moffat who stepped into the breach to greet the new arrivals.
Twenty-two
Maurice had been encouraged by the responses he’d received from Julie and Dennis to his proposal of a Jeremy/John Lennon lookalike video clip to compete with Ripurpantzov’s troll farm shenanigans. Like Barry and Jeremy before them, they had initially been incredulous, but with pleasing alacrity thereafter, both warmed to the idea.